


here is the repeated image of the lover destroyed

by foldingcranes



Series: Keep the Bullet [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Post-Fall of Overwatch, Time Travel, intercrural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-11
Updated: 2017-09-11
Packaged: 2018-12-26 13:38:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12060105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foldingcranes/pseuds/foldingcranes
Summary: [For theR76 Kink Meme.] Gabe’s young—so fucking young and full of promise, pragmatic but still a little bit naïve. Soldier’s chest aches at the sight of him, a different pain than the one stemming from where the bullets are nestled in his ribcage. Guts still open. Blood slipping through his fingers.(Soldier 76 time travels to the past.)





	here is the repeated image of the lover destroyed

**Author's Note:**

> "[Time-travel, SEP!Gabe/76 or Reaper/SEP!Jack]  
> Requesting for some time-travel shenanigans to happen and for SEP-era Gabe and Jack to meet their current timeline selves. I would absolutely LOVE it if something sexy happens along with it.
> 
> \+ bonus points for angst when Jack and Gabe see what they turn into vs who they used to be.  
> \+ SEP!Jack gets a tentacle kink from meeting Reaper."
> 
> Not exactly what was requested but CLOSE ENOUGH.

The last thing Jack remembers before the world started spinning is the frantic face of Lena as she shouted his name and the fact that he had been hit, his stomach and the lower part of his ribs filled with shotgun pellets. Now when he looks down he can see red blooming there through the leather of his jacket, soaking his clothes. The body he sees doesn’t feel like his body and the pain is a foreign sensation, like it’s happening to someone else. Like another body took these bullets for him.  
  
He’s going into shock.  
  
Trembling, he raises a weak hand to cover the wound in his abdomen: it’s bad, he’s bleeding profusely and probably holding his own guts between his fingers.  
  
There’s a pistol strapped to his left thigh and a biotic field equipped on his shoulder.  _Which one is it going to be this time, Jack?_  
  
The hand that isn’t currently holding in his insides is reaching for the gun when he decides to take a look at the sky. Millions of stars greet him; it’s a sight he hasn’t witnessed in years. Then he finally notices: he’s surrounded by dark green, the golden tassels of the corn illuminated by the moon.  
  
Soldier’s breath hitches.  
  
He’s back in Indiana, there’s no doubt.  
  
His throat closes at the image, those endless stars and endless fields of gold. Carefully, he takes a glove off and buries his fingers on the soil. The texture is enough to ground him and bring him back to reality. Soldier’s not home, but it’s close enough.  
  
(Home died a long time ago.)  
  
There’s a rustling sound and someone’s voice is coming from somewhere near the cornfield. Soldier makes the effort to sit and straighten his posture, looking for his pulse rifle. When he finds it though he realizes that the amount of effort required to raise it would have him panting and shaking.  
  
“Who’s there?” the voice asks, and Soldier’s whole body freeze at the sound of it. No way. He clings to the pulse rifle to steady himself. To avoid falling apart right there.  
  
He fucking traveled in time.  
  
He must have fucking time travelled, because Gabriel’s voice stopped sounding like that years ago.  
  
“C’mon, answer me! I saw you!”  
  
Soldier inhales deeply. Sure enough, a young, unweathered version of Gabriel Reyes stands tall between the corn plants, flashlight in hand. Gabriel’s face is free of any wrinkles or scars. He has an undercut that barely respects military regulation-- which means that he’s on leave--and a ridiculous soul patch. Soldier still remembers it well.  
  
He’s so beautiful it’s painful to look at him.  
  
“Hey, old man,” Gabriel’s brow furrows in concern. “Lower your weapon. You look like you’re about to keel over but if you keep pointing that thing at me I’m going to call the cops before the ambulance.”  
  
“No,” Soldier croaks, arms trembling with effort still. “You aren’t calling anyone. I’m not here. You aren’t seeing me. You aren’t talking to me.”  
  
_I’m a ghost_ , he wants to say.  
  
Soldier coughs some more, choking on his own blood, weakened more and more by the minute. “Raise your arms.”  
  
“Pfft, and I came in  _peace_ ,” Gabriel grunts. “I should have woken Jack up.” He’s not scared, not at all. He’s always been calm and collected under pressure, and Soldier may be armed but he’s just an injured, pathetic old man.   
  
God, he’s just a dying dog bleeding out into the soil of his old farm. Drinking in the sight of his former love isn’t going to keep him alive, but he’s finding a little solace in the beauty and brightness that still lives within this version of Gabriel.  
  
“Fine. So,” Soldier rasps, giving up. He’s struggling for air and his arms give away, finally. He drops the gun carelessly. “Where’s your lapdog?”  
  
“What?” Gabriel asks, confused, and Soldier can’t avoid a painful short burst of laughter as he sees the way Gabriel’s nose scrunches up in puzzlement.  
  
“Jack Morrison,” Soldier says, smiling. A crooked thing that Gabriel can’t see, Soldier’s mask putting a world of distance between them.  
  
“How do you know Jack?” Gabriel asks again, anger coloring his face this time. “And what did you just call him?”  
  
Soldier takes off his mask, needing to get air into his lungs faster. As he allows it to fall next to the pulse rifle, the world turns blurry in front of his eyes.  _It’s better this way_ , Soldier tells himself. He lost the right to see this Gabriel’s face after losing him.  
  
Gabe’s young—so fucking young and full of promise, pragmatic but still a little bit naïve. Soldier’s chest aches at the sight of him, it’s a different pain than the one stemming from where the bullets are nestled in his ribcage. Guts still open. Blood slipping through his fingers.  
  
And yet.  
  
It’s all going to be gone in a blink. Gabriel’s not an engineered killing machine yet—but he’s going to be one, soon. Jack will be there to hold him at night through the pain and be held in return.  
  
And then he will ruin everything. Not now, no: right at this moment, Jack Morrison sleeps peacefully on his childhood bed holding a pillow because his boyfriend woke up for a glass of water in the middle of the dead hours and saw a blinding light in the cornfields through the kitchen window.  
  
But later—Jack Morrison will follow Gabriel to hell and back, help him win the Omnic war, lead Overwatch and let them all get blown into pieces.  
  
“He’s going to be the end of you, you know?” Soldier lets out a long sigh, now looking directly at the blurry shape of Gabriel. After deliberating for so long he gives in, takes the biotic field strapped to his shoulder and sets it on the ground. The warm golden light blanketing him instantly.  
  
It feels like a waste.

 

Gabriel lets his arms fall limply to his sides and takes a couple of daring steps toward Soldier, soon crouching next to his defeated figure. Having him closer, Soldier can’t look away from Gabriel’s intense stare. “Who are you?” Gabriel asks again, an edge of wonder in his voice. Like the gears are turning in his mind but the proper explanation is so illogical he probably discarded it right from the start.  
  
But he was right.   
  
Soldier smiles at him, scarred face uncovered and blood on his teeth. “You still love  _Back to The Future_?”  
  
Gabriel makes a choking sound, something closer to a gasp, realizing.  _“Jack?”_  
  
“Not anymore,” Soldier shrugs, feeling uncomfortable under the healing warmth of the biotic field knitting his bone and flesh back together. The shotgun spray is still peppered through his stomach but he knows by now the bits of metal will evaporate, find their way back to where they came from.  _Who_  they came from. He’s not worried about sealing them into himself. He probably should be.  
  
“But you’re not wrong, love.” The endearment seems to undo Gabriel. His Jack’s never tossed terms of endearment as casually as this Jack did. His Jack rolls them out on his tongue first, feeling them stuck inside his throat until getting them out with noticeable effort. Still tightly closed, emotionally. Like a clam.  
  
Gabriel pried him open with time and love, and cherished the inside of that shell with lips and hands.  
  
“How?” Gabriel stutters, looking at Jack’s damaged face. The scar that crosses his nose and renders one of his eyes almost useless. The one that pulls his upper lip into a slight permanent snarl. Part of the tip of his nose missing, and the burns that peek under the collar of his jacket over his neck. “What happened to you?”  
  
“I fucked up,” Soldier snorts bitterly. “That’s what he does—he fucks up. A lot. He’s going to screw things up so badly you’re going to regret sticking by him in the end.”  
  
Gabriel frowns at him. “Fuck, okay you are Jack,” he drags a hand down his face, trying to be patient. “Stop talking about yourself in the third person, it’s creepy as hell.”  
  
“I’m not him anymore,” Soldier barks, wincing in pain as the healing process progresses. “I’m trying to warn you, I’m being serious—get rid of him. Spare yourself the pain.”  
  
“What happens to us,” Gabriel asks, voice suddenly full of misery, eyes pained. “What’s going to happen to us?”  
  
“I can’t tell you,” Soldier looks at the ground. At the small distance that separates his hand from Gabriel’s. Imagines himself reaching for it and tracing the small scar that he knows crosses the right side of the palm, close to Gabriel’s thumb. “I can only warn you.”  
  
Gabriel makes an exasperated noise and Soldier has enough, twisting and moving quickly enough to grab him by the chin and make him  _look_  at him.  
  
"If you broke my heart," he tells Gabriel. "You'd be saving your own ass."  
  
There’s a beat of silence and then Gabriel finds his own voice again, sounding very small. “Did I do this to you? Is it my fault?”  
  
“No,” Soldier denies immediately, almost heartbroken. His grip on Gabriel’s chin turns into something very gentle. A loving caress. “I did this to myself. My mistakes are what lead us to the point of no return.”  
  
_I’m the one who ruined us_ , Soldier doesn’t say. Presses the tip of his thumb against Gabriel’s lower lip. Remembers how nice it felt to kiss him, once. How nice it felt to love him and be loved in return.  
  
And how terrible it felt when those things were ripped away from him.  
  
(Here is the thing they don't tell you about love.  
  
It melts and it fades until you are left only with speckles of dust, particles of affection that cling to your skin like the ghost of a tender touch and stick to the back of your throat like ashes.)  
  
Gabriel looks fucking terrified. And pissed. “I won’t let him turn into you,” he spits, “I’m going to change the future—even if you refuse to tell me how.”  
  
“I warned you,” Soldier mutters tiredly. Defeated. He sways a little, from the effort of staying upright so long and soon he finds himself being cradled in Gabriel’s arms.  
  
He’s not as big as Soldier’s remember him, but his embrace is still comforting and loving and he nuzzles Gabriel’s neck in a moment of weakness. “You feel so good,” Soldier whispers, not bothering to hide the longing in his voice, breathing in Gabriel’s scent. He smells like sweat--because it’s the middle of the summer in Indiana, and sex--because him and Jack are young and bright and impossibly in love.  
  
“Jackie, you got ripped,” Gabriel tries to joke, but there’s an unsteady quality to his voice. Soldier’s back is pressed flush against his chest and Gabriel’s arms surround him, careful of the healing wounds on his front. Gabe noses at Soldier’s temple and he melts under the soft gestures of affection, falling back into old habits, letting himself be heavy in Gabriel’s arms.

 

“I missed you,” Soldier confesses, walls crumbling down around his heart. “I missed you so much I didn’t know what to do with myself.”  
  
“Why won’t you tell me how to prevent…whatever it is that’s gonna happen to us?” Gabriel holds him tighter, puts a hand over Soldier’s heart, and Soldier rests back on his shoulder, closing with eyes.  
  
“I can’t. Just…” he licks his lips, sluggish over the blood loss and the effects of the biotic field. “Touch me. Please.”  
  
He turns his head towards Gabriel, eyelashes fluttering and lips parted. Gabriel’s breath against his own is like a dream. “Kiss me, please. I need… I  _have_ to kiss you.”  
  
Gabriel’s lips are warm when pressed against his own. They feel a little bit chapped, dry under Indiana’s heat, and Soldier moans when hands rest over his chest, pulling him even closer to Gabriel’s body. “I missed you,” he repeats. He’s sobbing now, pitiful and undignified. Worse than a child. “I missed you loving me.”  
  
There’s heartbreak in Gabriel’s eyes.  
  
Soldier feels like a piece of shit.  
  
“Will I ever stop?” Gabriel asks, lips still resting just over Soldier’s. Hands running over his chest, holding him close. Letting Soldier use him as shelter. “Loving you?”

Soldier doesn’t answer, and Gabriel makes a choked sound before kissing him again.  
  
Ribs nearly healed by the biotic field, the only sensation grounding him to the present now is the feeling of being in Gabriel’s arms, making Soldier squirm and feel an almost forgotten heat pool in his groin. “God,” he groans. “I haven’t touched you in so long.”  
  
“Fuck,” Gabriel breathes, hands daring to go lower, breaking their kiss for some air and humming when Soldier mouths at his jaw. “We gotta fix that.”  
  
He palms the front of Soldier’s pants, grabbing his cock. “Jackie,” he sooths. “I’m here now.”  
  
Soldier arches his back instantly, feeling himself go rock hard.  
  
“You haven’t changed,” Gabriel says in a sweet, sweet voice and Jack feels himself about to burn, feels himself burning already. A fire that explodes inside of him when the naked skin of Gabriel’s fingers find their way into his underwear and grasp his hard cock just the way he likes it, gripping at the base and then slowly making his way up until Gabe’s touching the tip with his thumb and spreading the wetness pearled there over the flushed head.  
  
“You like to be pampered, don’t you Jackie?” Gabriel pumps his cock slowly, almost languidly. “You go all soft when I hold you like this,” he smiles at Soldier’s dazed look without slowing the movement of his hand, pressing his own hardness against Jack’s tailbone. Soldier lets out a whimper and Gabriel curses. “You’re still so fucking pretty.”  
  
Whining, Soldier tilts his head, exposing his neck for Gabriel to kiss. “Harder,” he asks, face flushed and thighs trembling with the effort not to come at being called  _that_  again. “Make it hurt, c’mon, mark me up or something.”  
  
“No,” Gabe presses his lips to the pulse point in Soldier’s neck. Then shuts him up with a gentle kiss. “I don’t want you to hurt anymore, sunshine.”  
  
“I don’t care, just—fuck me,” Soldier bites Gabriel’s lower lip, until they are kissing sloppily. “Please, please, just fuck me.”  
  
“I can’t, there’s no—” Gabriel stops kissing him to look around, and he stops when he sees the red staining Soldier’s clothing, like he’s coming down from a daze. “You are hurt, I can’t…”  
  
“You don’t even need to be inside of me,” Soldier grumbles, finding Gabriel’s crotch behind him and squeezing until Gabe is panting. “Put it between my thighs,” he orders him. Still shaky, he leans forward, settles himself on his hands and knees, the soil still humid and cold under his fingers. Soon, Gabriel’s body is covering him again like a beloved blanket as he pulls down his pants and closes his legs.  
  
Gabriel’s cock is nestled between his thighs now, pulsing and nudging his balls as Gabriel starts to thrust. There’s a hand gripping Soldier’s hip and another pumping his cock and he’s coming over Gabriel’s fingers before he can even register it, his orgasm catching him by surprise. Spine and legs trembling. Body sore and tepid, the muscles of his thighs squeezing Gabriel’s cock until he’s coming too.  
  
There’s a hand on Soldier’s lower back. An open palm with spread fingers rubbing tenderly over the skin there. A soothing gesture.  
  
He leans down his head on his arms and hides his face there, choking back tears. Reaper marked him with violence only hours ago.  
  
Gabriel marks him with tenderness. And Soldier surrenders himself to be healed, if only for a short moment.  
  
The light of the biotic field dies and Soldier pushes himself to stand, pulling on his pants again and fixing his clothes. Gabriel is still sitting on the ground, staring fixedly at him with a sadness Soldier doesn’t allow himself to look at. “Where are you going?”  
  
“Away,” Soldier answers shortly. The gun strapped to his leg feels heavy again, and the soreness and itchiness of his freshly healed wounds are back. “Forget about me,” he tries to sound cold. Detached. But his voice breaks at the end.  
  
And Gabriel knows him well. He stands also, proud and defiant, brow furrowed in an angry frown. “I told you. I won’t let him turn into you. I’ll do whatever it takes to avoid whatever fucked up future separated us. Just you wait.”  
  
Soldier looks sadly at him. At this bright, loving and hopeful version of the love of his life. Takes two steps towards him and kisses his forehead lovingly. “Get rid of me,” Soldier says.  
  
He turns his back on Gabriel and starts walking, aimless. “Who hurt you?” he hears Gabriel call, already from a distance. Doesn’t answer.  
  
“Was it me?”  
  
Soldier doesn’t look back.

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT: the wonderfully talented [asparklethatisblue](http://asparklethatisblue.tumblr.com/) drew beautiful fanart of this fic. [Go check it out](http://asparklethatisblue.tumblr.com/post/165449106063/based-on-here-is-the-repeated-image-of-the-lover), it's gorgeous <3.


End file.
